I think platypuses are awesome. They look like a bizarre crossover of ducks, beavers, and otters. Highly venomous, they can kill a small animal or incapacitate a grown human with their poison. To add to its distinction, they don’t use sight or smell to hunt like most animals. They’re too hip for that. Instead they radiate electric fields generated through muscular contractions to locate prey. Platypuses are simply the most awesome creatures on this planet.

Why a platypus and this odd metaphor?

I am excited to announce that today, Udacity is launching its Data Analyst nanodegree to help you get a job as a data analyst and become the platypus of the tech world. We will help you learn the unique combination of skillsets to become someone who can code like a software engineer, derive insights from data like a statistician, and present information like Steve Jobs.

Specifically, we will teach you the:

Data wrangling skills to deal with the messiest of data

Statistical and machine learning knowledge to interpret and make predictions from data

Communication and data visualization skills to tell a data-based story to technical and non-technical audiences alike

Data Analyst is simply one of the most exciting jobs of recent years, but don’t take my word for it. Harvard Business Review calls data science jobs the sexiest job of the 21st century and predicts that it will become the most in demand job function of the upcoming decade.

So venture forth, join us in our Data Analyst nanodegree, and become an awesome data science platypus yourself. We are honored to have you start your data analyst learning journey with us!